As we neared, I realized there was a creature sitting on the throne, though it was no bigger than a mouse, taking up the tiniest amount of space on the chair’s velveteen cushion. It was a fully formed, apparently sentient being, with legs and arms and a head, and blue hair spiked into a beaded mohawk. It was wearing a silky shift of bright turquoise wrapped around its body, and two glinting blue eyes were staring us down.
“Is that the Voice?” Angie gasped in disbelief.
“Yes, I am, as it happens,” the creature replied dryly, its voice somehow booming. “You should never judge power based on size. Have you ever held a live firecracker in your fist?”
Angie flushed red with embarrassment. “No, Mr. Voice.”
“Well, you should. Then you’d see how mighty something small can be. Maybe you should do it anyway, just for my amusement.” A smug smile curved up the corners of his rodent-like lips. “Now, I’m guessing you’ve got a question for me. Otherwise, you’ve come a long way to do nothing but gawk at me. I’m flattered, naturally, but I imagine there’s more to this than pure adoration.”
I stepped forward, trying to shake the surprise off my face. “We’ve all come here to ask for different things.”
“Greedy,” the Voice replied. I couldn’t tell whether it was teasing us or not.
“Is that okay?”
The tiny man shrugged. “Sure, ask away. I’ll let you know afterward if I fancy fulfilling your requests or not. Maybe you’ve caught me on a generous day. Maybe you’ve caught me on a stingy day. These are the risks we run.”
I flashed a nervous look at Navan, who gave me an encouraging nod. “My daughter needs sweetblood in order to survive. Please, might I request some sweetblood from you, to feed her, and stop her from dying a really terrible, painful death?” I decided to be brutally honest about what was at stake, in the hopes that it might persuade the creature to help.
“And here I was, thinking you were going to give me a challenge. Frankly, all the requests have been tedious today.” The Voice sighed, giving a flick of his wrist.
“You can help?”
“Does a junkhound crap in the scrapheap?”
I frowned. “Uh… I don’t know.”
The Voice rolled its eyes. “Yes, I can help. Well, I can tell you who can, anyway.”
“And who might that be?” I pressed, after a lengthy silence passed without the creature saying a word.
“Do I have to do everything?” it muttered sardonically. “You need only talk to the woman you befriended before. The one with the tea. Had you sought to ask her more questions, you might have discovered what you needed without troubling me.”
“Oh… um, thank you.” I frowned, wondering how this tiny creature knew so much. What even was it? It didn’t seem polite to ask.
The Voice gave a jaunty bow. “My pleasure. Now, move along. If you’ve all got a question, this is going to take forever, and it is coming very close to breakfast time.”
Navan was the next to step forward. He’d barely opened his mouth to speak when the Voice snorted in derision. “Don’t see your sort in here too often, not since those twins decided to split your planet in two and have a slice each for themselves. Ooh, you should have seen how all those defectors came scuttling out of the woodwork. I’d never had to figure out so many ways to acquire blood without causing another war.”
“You know that war hasn’t ended, don’t you?” Navan replied.
The Voice shrugged. “Not really my concern. Your sort don’t like to come out of your coldblood shells, and the rest of the universe doesn’t care to associate with you. I know those twins have caused another ruckus, and there are some unsavory characters involved in reclaiming what they believe is rightfully theirs, but show me a planet that hasn’t endured the same thing. Your kind will never stop fighting each other—it’s in your blood. You can’t help yourselves.”
“Well, that happens to be why I’m here.”
“Let me guess, you want me to miraculously fix a war that’s been brewing for decades, and do something about this newfound immortality of theirs, all in the blink of a magical eye?” The Voice cackled coldly. “I only deal in feasible requests, not impossible ones. If you want everyone on your planet to be friends and dance around in circles, loving and kissing each other as one big, happy family, you’ll have to wait until a winner emerges. See what they do with Vysanthe, then get back to me. I still won’t be able to help—I just want to hear what sort of mess you get yourselves into next.”
This tiny creature was starting to annoy me. Yes, it had given me a way to acquire some sweetblood, though only time would tell how successful I’d be, but he had to be the snarkiest person I’d met in a very long time. The great and powerful Oz would have been way better.
“So you won’t help?” Navan’s voice was edged with ice.
“I can’t fix anything for you. What do you take me for, a Stargazer?” It cackled again, seemingly delighted with itself. “However, if you’re that desperate, I can give you a snippet of information. I’m not all-knowing for nothing, you know.”
Navan smiled icily. “That would be great, thanks.”
“Well then, my gray-skinned compadre, feast your peepers on this.” The Voice pressed a button on the tiniest device I’d ever seen, and a video stream flickered to life on the wall behind him. It showed the two queens’ fleets moving slowly over the frosted landscape of Vysanthe, a fine mist billowing out from behind their vessels. From the look of the terrain, they were flying over the northern reaches of the planet. Beneath their fleets, rebel soldiers crumpled under the curious mist, those who were flying tumbling out of the air, hitting the ground with an almost audible thud, though the video was silent. I knew they were rebels because they were wearing the gray uniforms that Ezra and Aurelius had brought in to mark out their army.
“What is that stuff?” Navan asked, voicing my own question. I figured it was best if Navan was the only one to speak, in that moment, in case the Voice interpreted any interruptions as further requests, costing us dearly.
“What does it look like?” the Voice replied.
“Is it putting them to sleep?”
“Ding, ding, ding, the grayskin isn’t as dense as he looks!”
Navan frowned. “The queens must have created some sort of bioweapon to put the rebels to sleep,” he mused, turning back to the rest of us. “I guess that makes sense. They’re immortal, but they’re not immune to unconsciousness.”
“Definitely not as dense as you look,” the Voice purred. “Shall we put Sir down as satisfied with his customer service?”
Navan shot him a hard look. “I have enough of an answer, if that’s what you mean.”
“Excellent, so who’s up next? My stomach is starting to growl, so make it snappy. I can be very parsimonious when I’m hungry.”
Lauren strode forward, staring right down at the rodent-like features of the Voice. It was so hard to tell whether the creature was male, female, or neither, and the booming timbre of its voice was weirdly disorienting. I had a feeling there was some sort of microphone at work, but I couldn’t see any speakers, and its voice seemed to be all around us, pressing in on my ears. I desperately wanted to know what sort of being it was, especially as it seemed to know everything but didn’t care to get itself involved. It had barely batted an eyelid when it’d mentioned the war on Vysanthe and the newfound immortality of the rebels.
“You say you’re not a Stargazer, but what can you tell us about those beings? If we were to find them, how might we entice them to help us?” Lauren asked, making me wonder if that was why the Voice had mentioned them in the first place. Perhaps it already knew our questions before we stepped into the room… but how? We probably wouldn’t find out, at least not today. We had more pressing questions to ask.
The Voice turned serious for a moment, taking us all by surprise. “You know, people think fables are just for young’uns, but those folks have forgotten where true knowledge lies—it lies in the sto
ries passed down from generation to generation. Once forgotten, these tales wither and die, losing their potency as they fall into obscurity. You could travel through most of the universe, and only a quarter would be able to tell you they’d heard of the Stargazers. Even less would be able to tell you such beings were real.” It smirked. “Then again, the universe is jampacked with idiots—just ask your gray-skinned friend over there. His folks are the leaders of the idiot brigade, always squabbling and striving to play God, forgetting the ancient history on which their planet was formed.”
“And where might I find these old tales?” Lauren pressed. “Do I have to find someone who knows the stories?”
“Far simpler than that, cherub.” The Voice grinned. “Head to the Lost and Found, see what you can rustle up from the dusty tomes left to rot amongst the endless detritus of a million species. Might be a book of fables there to help you on your quest.”
“Well, when you put it like that…” Lauren said dryly. The thought of sifting through so much junk didn’t exactly sound appealing.
“Although, like all my ‘gifts’ of knowledge, you’ll have to leave an item of equivalent value. Nothing comes for free in this universe; you ought to know that by now, regardless of where you come from,” he warned, his tone jingling with mischief. “Trust me, if someone says you can have something for free, they’re either lying or they’re biding their time.”
Lauren turned to us, puzzled. We had a few items with us from the Fed ship, but nothing that was worth much. I could only imagine what the equivalent value for an ancient book of fables that would help us contend with the Stargazers might be. It seemed like a high price might be needed.
“Don’t tell me, you’ve come all this way and got nothing to trade?” the Voice taunted. “If I had a credit for every time someone came in here and lamented the same thing, I could give this whole thing up and spend the rest of my days as a phony soothsayer like the rest of my kind.”
“So, what do we do?” I piped up, feeling helpless.
“Not every trade has to be made with physical goods. An equivalent item doesn’t always have to be corporeal—something you can hold in your hands. There is much in this universe that is of great value, if you know where to look.” He flashed a disappointed look, as though we were all imbeciles. “What did I just tell you?”
“Stories… stories that mean more than they appear,” Lauren gasped, the pieces clicking. “If we leave information of equivalent value, then we can pay the price for our own information.”
The Voice grinned. “Glad there’s one sharp tool in the shed.”
“Thank you,” Lauren replied, smiling back at the rest of us. Not for the first time, I was so happy she was here to fit the clues together.
“My pleasure. Now, enough. Get out of my hall this instant. My food shall be arriving momentarily, and I do hate to eat in front of other people. Anyway, judging by what I’ve learned of you, you’d just gawk and ask dimwitted questions. Go on, scoot!” He waved a tiny hand, his blue eyes glittering.
We didn’t need telling twice. Following the gestures of the guards, we headed out of a door at the back of the cavernous room and stepped out into a hallway. Several doors branched off from the main space, with another set of large double doors at the far end. Symbols rested above the lintel of each doorway, but I couldn’t read what they said.
“Lost and Found,” Stone announced with a grin, pointing up at the second door down. “Me favorite spot of all, where one fella’s junk becomes me very own treasure trove. Crazy what folks’ll lob aside, thinkin’ it’s worth naught. I, on the other hand, have a very discernin’ eye… three of ‘em, in fact!”
“All the better for picking out bargains, am I right?” Lauren giggled.
He nodded happily. “Aye, right y’are.”
I snuck a glance at Xiphio, who was watching them with the most mournful expression on his sweet face. With every step those two took toward each other, he was pushed to the edges. It wasn’t hard to see that his heart was breaking, though I believed him when he’d said he wished them only joy. I just hoped it didn’t push him too far away from the rest of us.
Chapter Ten
Turning the handle and pushing the door wide, we entered the room marked Lost and Found. I wasn’t sure what to expect on the other side, but my jaw dropped as soon as my eyes grew accustomed to the gloomy interior. A flick of a switch lit everything up, showing the enormous warehouse in its full glory.
Crammed into every available space were objects of every kind, from the weird and wonderful to the practically banal. There were crates of weapons I’d never seen before, boxes of toys and stuffed animals I didn’t recognize, stacks of abandoned games and gadgets, piles of discarded clothes and shoes, and rows upon rows of books of all shapes and sizes. It was like the universe’s biggest thrift store, and I, for one, was thrilled to be here. It was a bargain hunter’s paradise, though it carried that same mildewed scent that seemed to come with all secondhand goods, no matter where in the universe they were purchased. Didn’t matter if it was Earth, Phnossos, Zai, or anywhere in between… I was convinced that scent would stay exactly the same.
Drawn immediately to the clothes, Angie and I began to sift through, with me picking out a new sweater made of an unknown, impossibly soft fabric in a coral-red shade, while she went for a kimono-style garment of richly printed silk. It was one of the most beautiful pieces of clothing I’d ever seen, and it looked perfect on her.
“I guess we have to leave something if we take these,” I said, reluctantly.
“Well, I don’t mind leaving this grim thing so I can feel like a dazzling freaking butterfly,” Angie replied, pulling off her plain black sweater and casting it onto the pile. I stared at the item in my hands before tentatively putting it back. I’d already asked for one thing today; I didn’t want to risk angering the Voice by taking something else. I wasn’t even sure if he could see or hear us, but I wasn’t taking any chances.
Despite its size, the Lost and Found was relatively easy to navigate, as everything was meticulously organized by category and followed an alphabetical order that Stone seemed to understand perfectly. He whizzed through the stacks with ease, running his index finger across several labels that meant nothing to me. I supposed there were some benefits to being a lifelong trader of secondhand goods—he seemed to know exactly where he was going, and all we could do was follow his lead.
He skidded to a halt in front of an innocuous-looking stack of books, all neatly placed on shelves that were thick with dust. He peered at every title until his hand stopped on one particularly dusty tome, pulling it out of the lineup. Wiping the cover clean, he handed it to Lauren with a triumphant grin on his face.
“Your fables, Ren.”
“You found them?” she replied, staring down at the book in her hands.
“Aye, it weren’t too tricky. Just gotta know where to look. I’ve spent years in dives like this, seekin’ out what I’m after. Second nature to me now.”
She looked at him anxiously. “So, what should we leave in return?”
“We could record a story about Vysanthe and leave it here, or maybe one about Earth,” Navan suggested, though he didn’t sound overly eager.
“There are many tales of Almaghura that might be fitting,” Xiphio chimed in, with equally limited enthusiasm.
“Actually, Ren, I were havin’ a couple thoughts about that,” Stone said, dropping his gaze. “I thought it might be grand to leave a tale about me home world. I mean, I figure it’s like the wee mite said—once forgot, them stories wither an’ die, crumblin’ away to dust. Might be takin’ me own spin on it, but the gist ain’t changed. If I leave me tales here, exchanged fer that book o’ fables, at least me folks’ll live on here. Maybe the ‘verse will forget us, sure enough, but me voice will still tell a tale for years to come, right here for anyone what cares to listen.”
Lauren’s eyes glittered. “I think that sounds wonderful, Stone.”
“A
beautiful tribute,” I conceded, completely moved by his suggestion. Nova let out a happy squeal, making it seem all the more perfect.
Navan smiled. “Even Nova agrees.”
“Right, then I’ll leave me tale for future folks to find, should the mood take ‘em.” Stone darted back into the stacks to find a suitable recording device, before hurrying back to where we all stood. We all gathered around him in a solemn circle as he began to recount a story he’d heard from his grandparents, which had been passed down by their grandparents, and so on, and so forth, reaching back into the annals of his ancestors.
It told of an ambaka girl named Hero who had held off the tide of an invading horde of avenging creatures that had come from the skies, singlehandedly keeping them at bay through ten days and ten nights. They had come to attack the ambakas’ holiest site—the Whetstone Mountains—where legend had it that the soul of the planet resided. It was a place of great power, as fables explained, the root from which the ambaka powers stemmed, offering great strength to worthy subjects. These invading enemies threatened it, and though there were towns nearby, no one dared to face the oncoming wrath—they no longer believed in the soul of the planet, praying the invaders would leave once they had destroyed what they had come to destroy. Hero heard the mountain call to her in pain and had hurried from her town to face the onslaught. She had struggled with every ounce of strength that she had, vowing to protect their holy site until her last breath.
When other people saw her strength and defiance, they watched her in awe but did not dare to risk the fury of their enemies. And then, as the days passed, a boy named Ankh found his way to the mountain ledge where she stood, and he nourished her with water and food, so she would not falter. As she strained against the enemy, he told her stories he had heard, to keep her from falling asleep. He was an outcast amongst his people, born without the ability to freeze, and yet his heart was open and pure, his willingness to help Hero charming those who witnessed it. News spread, and the people finally came to help Hero. They reached the mountain ledge and turned their third eyes to the oncoming enemy, relieving her of the load.